Distributing messages across leaf nodes

[roded]

Hello,
I have a NATS cluster with Jetstream enabled to which two leaf nodes are connected.

I'd like to be able to send messages from the cluster to the leaf nodes in the following patterns:

1. Send a message specifically to any one of the leaf nodes.
2. Be able to send a message only once to either leaf nodes.

I'm trying to understand the reservations expressed in https://docs.nats.io/nats-concepts/jetstream/source_and_mirror with regards to WorkQueue retention.

I thought about creating a stream in the cluster and having a source stream in each leaf node pull the messages from the origin stream. Then I could have every leaf source stream consume either a shared subject or a subject specific to it. However, it's not clear to me if the warnings about using source streams with a WorkQueue retention policy at the origin stream might cause duplicate messages arriving at both leaf nodes or loss of messages altogether.

Kind of new to NATS and trying to get my head around how things work. If there's a better way to accomplish the above please let me know.

Thanks!

[roded]

This might be related: #4109

[roded]

I think I'm starting to get my head around this.
I think what I want to do is have a stream WorkQueue retention stream on the cluster and an Explicit AckPolicy consumer.
Then clients connected to leaf nodes will just pull the messages off said consumer.